Throughout the midrash Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer , motifs are recycled to connect primordial time to the eschaton. In this paper, I read passages on the well “created at twilight of the Sixth Day” in light of Bakhtin's notion of “chronotope” . The author of PRE disengages the itinerant well from its traditional association with the desert sojourn and links it, instead, to the foundation stone of the world at the Temple Mount. The midrash reflects the influence of Islamic legends about (...) the “white stone” around which the Dome of the Rock was built . Over the course of the discussion, PRE is understood in terms of the genre “narrative midrash” and compared to classical rabbinic literature in order to illustrate changes in both form and content arising from the author's apocalyptic eschatology. (shrink)

Francesca Y. Albertini (1974‐2011) compares Maimonides’ idea of peace, as developed in MT Sefer shofetim (Book of Judges), with Kant’s work on the notion of “eternal peace” ( Zum ewigen Frieden ). Both authors develop a historical vision pointed against the use of force and war in light of a framework not limited by historical time (messianic age, eternity). Despite all differences in method and historical context, the authors agree on the notion that universal ethics provides the basis of a (...) determination of right grounded in the will. Maimonides’ universal messianism as well as Kant’s universal history emphasize the pivotal role and decisive responsibility of the human being in realizing, through reason, the reign of peace and prosperity on earth first envisioned by the biblical prophets. These utopias continue to challenge us, especially in this day and age. (shrink)

Writing in 1935 as "Hugo Fiala," Karl Löwith not only connected Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt to an apparently contentless "decisionism" but drew attention to the fact that his correspondent Leo Strauss had attacked Schmitt—like Heidegger an open Nazi since 1933— from the Right in 1932. In opposition to the views of Peter Eli Gordon, Heidegger's bellicose stance at the Davos Hochschule of 1929 is presented as "political" in Schmitt's sense of the term while Strauss's embrace of Heidegger, never regretted, (...) showed that he ceased to be Nietzsche's "Good European" in his thirtieth year. A more significant "change of orientation" is revealed in Strauss's 1932 version of the "second cave," a pseudo-Platonic image of Verjudung . Revelation had disrupted a nihilistic "natural ignorance" that could only be reversed by an elite's secret decision for a self-contradictory content: only an atheistic religion provides a post-liberal solution to "the theological-political problem.". (shrink)

This study shows that despite the fact that Leo Strauss published little about Jacobi, the misunderstood thinker about whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation exercised a crucial influence on what is often thought to be Strauss's most enduring achievement: his rediscovery of exotericism. A consideration of several of Strauss's writings that do mention Jacobi but remained unpublished at the time of his death—in particular his studies on Moses Mendelssohn, who was Jacobi's principal target in the Pantheismusstreit —reveal that Strauss considered (...) Jacobi to be an exoteric writer. Appropriately enough, it is only a Straussian-style reading of Strauss's claims that exotericism lapsed after Lessing's death that reveals Jacobi's influence between the lines. Some consideration is given to the question of why Strauss wrote about Jacobi in this secretive way. (shrink)

This study shows that despite the fact that Leo Strauss published little about Jacobi, the misunderstood thinker about whom he wrote his doctoral dissertation exercised a crucial influence on what is often thought to be Strauss's most enduring achievement: his rediscovery of exotericism. A consideration of several of Strauss's writings that do mention Jacobi but remained unpublished at the time of his death—in particular his studies on Moses Mendelssohn, who was Jacobi's principal target in the Pantheismusstreit—reveal (...) that Strauss considered Jacobi to be an exoteric writer. Appropriately enough, it is only a Straussian-style reading of Strauss's claims that exotericism lapsed after Lessing's death that reveals Jacobi's influence between the lines. Some consideration is given to the question of why Strauss wrote about Jacobi in this secretive way. (shrink)

This essay examines the contrast between two conceptions of the universal, one represented by the modern State and the other by the Jewish people. In order to do so, it returns to the collection of essays on Judaism Levinas wrote in the approximately two decades after the Second World War, Difficult Freedom. Its aim is to focus specifically on the political dimension within this collection and then to step back and reflect on how his way of speaking of the political (...) appears to us a full generation later. As is well known, Levinas's approach to the political has a way of escaping that realm, while nonetheless remaining relevant to it. This is what we shall try to capture and to evaluate. (shrink)

This essay examines the contrast between two conceptions of the universal, one represented by the modern State and the other by the Jewish people. In order to do so, it returns to the collection of essays on Judaism Levinas wrote in the approximately two decades after the Second World War, Difficult Freedom . Its aim is to focus specifically on the political dimension within this collection and then to step back and reflect on how his way of speaking of the (...) political appears to us a full generation later. As is well known, Levinas's approach to the political has a way of escaping that realm, while nonetheless remaining relevant to it. This is what we shall try to capture and to evaluate. (shrink)

The question of the other appears to be a uniquely human concern. Engagement with the nature of alterity and the quality of the other are philosophical projects that commence with an assumed anthropocentrism. This anthropocentrism will be pursued by way of Hegel's discussion of "disease" in his Philosophy of Nature. Disease is implicitly bound up with race, racial identity and animality, and provides an opening to the question: what if the other were an animal? Any answer to this question should (...) resist a founding anthropocentrism by no longer being limited by the opposition human/non-human. This gives rise to the possibility of engaging philosophically with questions of race and ethnicity. (shrink)

The "healthy human understanding" presents a theme of constant struggle for Rosenzweig, above all with regard to his determination of the essence of philosophy, because this concept acquires for him an anti-philosophical hue that colors both theory of knowledge and ethics. This contribution follows the traces of the healthy human understanding in Rosenzweig's works. On this background, it is determined that the "old" philosophy falls into a deep discontent, in contrast to the contentment of the "philosophy of healthy human understanding". (...) The discontent of the latter nevertheless also becomes apparent, however, because it is incapable of giving an account of itself. In this regard, one can find a horizon of research precisely in that "rational treatment" which Rosenzweig mocks as "Criticin-vaccination". The essay "What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?" in which Kant, among other things, defines the common healthy reason, offers a convincing approach to a faith which partakes of rationality. (shrink)

The philosophical question "what is?" plays different roles in the work of Cohen and Rosenzweig. According to Cohen, it expresses the authentic meaning of the Socratic concept, which has its methodical-transcendental foundation in the Platonic Idea as answer, since it gives an account of the concept. So Cohen turns the question into an epistemological problem, because it ultimately refers to the necessary condition of knowledge. In contrast, Rosenzweig sees in the "what is?" question grounds to condemn the "old" philosophy founded (...) on the identity of being and thought. In his view, the question is the original sin of the "philosophy of the All", which has always reduced everything to something completely different by means of the altering word "is" in the "is"-question. Nevertheless, with regard to the "what is?" question, it is possible to detect a kind of agreement between the two philosophers: namely, Rosenzweig opposes a claim of ontological reduction that Cohen also rejects. (shrink)

The philosophical question "what is?" plays different roles in the work of Cohen and Rosenzweig. According to Cohen, it expresses the authentic meaning of the Socratic concept, which has its methodical-transcendental foundation in the Platonic Idea as answer, since it gives an account of the concept. So Cohen turns the question into an epistemological problem, because it ultimately refers to the necessary condition of knowledge. In contrast, Rosenzweig sees in the "what is?" question grounds to condemn the "old" philosophy founded (...) on the identity of being and thought. In his view, the question is the original sin of the "philosophy of the All", which has always reduced everything to something completely different by means of the altering word "is" in the "is"-question. Nevertheless, with regard to the "what is?" question, it is possible to detect a kind of agreement between the two philosophers: namely, Rosenzweig opposes a claim of ontological reduction that Cohen also rejects. (shrink)

In Franz Rosenzweig's "The Star of Redemption" the chorus comes on stage in three forms: chorus in tragedy (with its presence in ancient classical tragedy and its absence in modern one), chorus of redemption and chorus in church music. Analyzing the role of chorus is useful to study Rosenzweig's aesthetics, which is in a way a "classical" art theory, but not an idealistic "pure" aesthetics, inasmuch as art must be "applied" art. An idealistic pure art condemns us to live in (...) an hortus conclusus, far away from God and from life, while an applied art brings us near to the lost gan 'eden. (shrink)

Abstract At the beginning of his best seller Meaning in History , Karl Löwith launches a violent attack against Jewish prophetism, using the philosophy of history of Hermann Cohen as his first and foremost example. This article purports to show that Löwith misinterpreted the thought of Hermann Cohen. It also reclaims Cohen's own position on history and on the philosophy of history by identifying the questions Cohen himself had asked in his time. At the end of the article, some paths (...) of research are indicated that might prove themselves fruitful today, in a further study of Cohen's thought. (shrink)